hack Refrain
by Sirup The Rising
Summary: In 2025, "The World" is once again struck by mysterious happenings and Shinobu is caught in the middle of it all. Does she hold the key to solve the mystery of "Phase Shift" and the "Book of Twilight". Players from the past versions join in.
1. Prologue

**_A/N:_ **_Okay, my second fanfiction on this site and it's a bit different, seemingly not having any of the original characters in it. It does and there will be more later on. Thing is, this does take place in the future so players from past versions are older now so they might seem different. Please bear with me and I hope you will all still enjoy the story._

* * *

><p><em>"The World": The largest online game in modern times. Now it has reached its third version, Revision X or R:X for short. The new version incorporated various features from R:2 and since it was possible to play it on the handheld P-COM, its popularity only kept growing. With new and improved graphics, nothing seemed to be able to stop "The World" from becoming the ultimate online game.<em>

2025. After running for 5 years with no major bugs or problems, "The World R:X" suddenly crashed without warning. On their website, CyberConnect posted a formal apology and promised to get the game up and running without having to delete any character data. But despite working with a large portion of their workforce, CC Corp was unable to start up the servers again. It was a dark time for all players of "The World"...

Until one day when a mirror server appeared on the internet. Without having to pay for anything, the players were able to access most parts of "The World" again with their original characters intact. CC Corp was quick to speak up about the mysterious rebirth of "The World" and it became apparent that they were not behind it.

It was a hacker. Known as "The Prophet of the Twilight", he had somehow accumulated data from past versions of "The World" as well as R:X and from this, created a mirror server. CC Corp was soon given access to the server and rebuilt the game by implementing elements from the past versions as well. New avatar designs became available and the Root Towns changed their appearance slightly. And so "The World" was born anew.

But since data from all versions had been compiled, just how much of the old games would still be living on?

Half a year has passed since CC Corp rebuilt "The World", thanks to the game data given to them by "The Prophet". Everything has been working without problems and the players started to believe that the ultimate version of "The World" had finally been born.

But lately players have been reporting strange things happening. From strange PC's wandering aimlessly in dungeons to unusable items appearing in players' inventory. "The World" has come across mysterious events happening once again.

With the strange resurfacing of the epic poem known as "Epitaph of Twilight", you can only help but to wonder: Just how much of the data have been recovered? Has "The World" once again been infected with an unknown virus? And what is the mysterious "Cubia Code", which has been mentioned on the message board?


	2. Monologue: Shinobu

It all started with a strange post on the message board.

_Do you know Aura?_

That one message apparently caused a huge uproar within CC Corporation. It was deleted minutes after it had been posted. And the result: A huge fuss in the Rumor forum. People began talking about an "epic poem" called "The Epitaph of Twilight", but no one really knew what it meant.

Then came the mysterious appearances of PC's, wandering aimlessly around the dungeons and fields. From them, a new mysterious sentence made its way to the boards.

_The "Cubia Code". Any idea what it is?_

Once again, the message was deleted shortly afterwards and the Rumor forum was flooded with theories about a possible conspiracy inside CC Corp. I was still an ordinary player back then, so I did not know any more than everyone else.

And so _that_ appeared too. Strange unusable items began showing up in the inventory of a portion of the players. There was no description and it was just there. I have never seen it for myself, but I have heard about it from other players. Someone speculated that it might be the Cubia Code and others joked with "The World" coming to an end. No one found it funny. Some said that stuff like it had happened before and that "The World" would be saved by the "legendary heroes".

But they were not wrong. Well, not really right either, but at least they had an idea. No one in their right mind could have foreseen what was going to happen within the game. Not long after, everything started to go wrong.


	3. Shinobu The Mischievous

She was sitting on the edge of the bridge which connected the two parts of the Root Town to each other. Her legs were busy kicking the air while she was whistling a tune. Lots of people who were passing by would stop and stare at her for a short while before moving on.

_Newbies_, she thought to herself.

Her character was of the "Alkaid" type, a ninja-like female avatar. Her long red-brown hair was tied up in a pigtail. Her top and pants were both a dusty green color combined with a brownish orange belt and from the back of her pants to blade-like decorations were sticking out.

She turned around and jumped onto the bridge when a big guy covered in dark red tattoos on most of his upper body approached her.

"Hey there little lady. Want to team up with me for some treasure hunting?" he asked with a flirtatious expression.

She tried hard to suppress the pressing urge to make a face and reply with a sarcastic remark. Fortunately she was saved by the bells ringing from the clock towers in the far end of the Root Town.

"Sorry. I've got something important to do."

The man looked at her, confused. She just took a few steps before turning towards him again while waving at him.

"Be sure to go to _Θ Screaming, Cursed, Pumpkin_. The Halloween event is about to start there."

It did not help the man understand her better as he just sighed and walked away while mumbling something about a bad excuse. She did not put more into to it. She was rather busy after all. It was time for her to go to the Chaos Gate by the clock tower. It was time to go to the Θ Server.

Δ

"Hi there! Welcome to the Great Pumpkin Hunt! I am Shinobu and I will be your host today, during the event!"

Hundreds of people were standing beneath a hill in a large green field. Strange ruins were shooting up everywhere and on top on one of those, the announcer was standing.

"You all know that Halloween would be nothing without the scary pumpkins. Unfortunately some strange monsters have been showing up, preventing us from gathering them."

The addresser, Shinobu, a character of the "Alkaid" type, a ninja with red-brown hair and green clothing, demonstrated it with one of the monsters, a weird kind covered in leaves. She easily finished it off with a fire spell.

"As you can see those things are slightly aggressive. Your goal is to gather as many Scary Pumpkins from these monsters as possible. The winner will be the one who has gathered the most of course. Good luck everyone!"

After finishing the introduction, Shinobu watched the enormous crowd running in every single direction to hunt for the pumpkins. She looked at them, satisfied.

"I wonder how long it will take them to realize that Scary Pumpkins are only rare drops," she giggled to herself.

She did not notice the person approaching behind her, whose voice now spoke to her.

"That's not very nice you know."

Shinobu turned around, startled, to see who was speaking to her. After all, the area they were standing in was limited to people from the System Administration. The person behind her had a tall and quite handsome avatar of the "Balmung"-type, a type which was very popular around the male players. His hair was pitch black and his armor, red as blood.

"I was going to tell them that," she answered calmly. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"My character's name is Masamune. I was here about…" he began, but was quickly caught off by the ninja girl.

"Masamune? You named your character after a _sword_?" Shinobu asked with a grin which was quickly followed by an angry outburst from the other person.

"Wha…? A sword? No! Masamune was a samurai during the Edo period!"

The girl nodded with a teasing smile.

"Oh, riiight. So what's he doing nowadays?" she laughed.

"What do you mean "nowadays"? Are you making fun of me?" the male character asked with an angry voice, his cheeks burning red with anger.

Shinobu looked at him with a fake shocked expression.

"No! I would never do such a thing!" Shinobu declared in a sarcastic tone. Fortunately the man seemed to catch on to it.

"No, of course not," he replied in a similar tone. "But I was actually here about the job as an assistant eventer."

Shinobu raised her eyebrow slightly, becoming a little more serious.

"So? Go talk to the System Administration about it."

"I have. That's my point. I'm hired."

That threw Shinobu off guard for a second.

"What… did you say?"

"I said: "I'm hired". I'm your freaking assistant," he said, annoyed by the other person's reaction. Then he added in a lower voice:

"Geez. Girls on top these days. Thinks they can do and say as they please."

Shinobu's eye twitched at the knight's remark. She was really beginning to dislike the arrogant guy standing in front of her.

"Listen. If you want to say something, say it straight to my face!"

Masamune scratched the back of his head, clearly beginning to grow impatient with the younger girl. He was clearly trying to keep his cool.

"Listen yourself. Shouldn't you be keeping track of this event instead of arguing?" Masamune said with a teasing smile.

With a low growl, Shinobu began moving down onto the field, realizing that her new _assistant_ was right. But she was not going to acknowledge that guy as her partner. There was just no way that that was ever going to happen.

"My day just got a thousand times better. Hooray." she muttered to herself in a sarcastic voice, before moving on with Masamune right behind her.


	4. Login 1

Sometimes, reality just sucked.

That was the reason why I had always loved online games. In here, people were not constantly complaining about having too little free time or too much homework or too many classes. People were just enjoying the time they were able to spend here. Of course you could find your average moron lurking around every now and then, but it was not something you could not learn to live with. But real life? _That_ was the most bothersome thing. Hah.

My head was filled with lots of gloomy thoughts as I headed down the stairs from the large cathedral in the middle of the beginner's Root Town, Mac Anu. It was the place I liked to be the most when I felt a little down, but right now, it did not really lighten my mood. The coders had recently added a small café-like area in town and I had to meet up with _someone_ to plan new events. I was not feeling up to it, but if I skipped out on it, my "employees" at CC Corp might get a little displeased with me.

And yes. I had to meet up with _that_ guy: My wonderful and charming assistant, Masamune.

I sighed as I passed a group of players. My drooping shoulders and dark attitude drew their attention, but I did not feel like telling them off. I was going to save that for my dear Masamune. I had had a _terrible_ day and someone had to pay for it. Too bad for him that he was the first one I was going to see. He always was. There was not really anyone to meet up with in the outside world, unless I wanted to have my ears ranted off. People were just so bothersome.

As I went down the road leading away from the Central District and towards the harbor, I received a quick mail from an online friend of mine, Kaede.

_Where are you? Masamune is furious!_

A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I knew I was late, but imagining him like that in my mind, it only made me want to be even later. I should probably feel bad for making him angry like that, but I had never felt guilty about it. It was his own fault for being such a stiff know-it-all around me all the time. He might be older than me, but that does not mean that he is better in _any_ way.

But I did feel sorry for Kaede, having to stick up with the knight in not-so-shiny armor when he was throwing one of his fits. She was one of the moderators of CC Corp and her job was to manage the new café in town, because, like in real life, fights tended to break out anywhere. Still, she was the reason that the café had grown so popular already. There were rumors about CC Corp planning to open places like it in the other Root Towns. Well, meeting places were always a good idea, as long as the graphics were fine.

Continuing towards the café in the harbor area, I began to think of how I was going to take out my own anger on Masamune in the best way possible.

Δ

The door to the Chim Café flew open, due to my foot kicking the barrier on hinges up. My actions made sure that every single person had their eyes on me, as I entered with a huge, fake smile on my face. I went straight over to the temporarily dumbfounded assistant of mine and gave him a hard pat on his back.

"What's _up_, partner?"

Masamune cringed. Maybe I had been a bit too rough with him. My suspicions of such were confirmed when his face changed to an expression of utmost rage. I could swear that I heard a snap, probably a vein or something along those lines. I knew that my evil little plan had succeeded. I eyed Kaede behind the desk holding her hand against her forehead while sighing. She had seen through my plan already.

"Why the _HELL_ are you so late?" Masamune yelled, causing every player inside the café turn towards us.

I was glad that my character type had no clothing around the neck. If he had been able to, he would most certainly have lifted me by grabbing it. I gave him my most impish smile. I was not called "Shinobu the Mischievous" for nothing.

"My train had a puncture, so I was delayed."

I was pushing my luck as usual. He was so angry that I could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears and nose. My mood was already beginning to lighten up. Masamune's mood, on the other hand, seemed to be deteriorating by the minute.

"Trains do not get punctures! Do I look like an idiot to you?"

My grin grew wider as I replied: "Do you really want to know?"

Masamune was without a doubt as close to going berserk as one possibly could. Usually I would not be pushing it this much, but today I felt no care in the world while doing so. The people in the café tried to pull back discreetly, but they failed rather miserably. It was obvious that they were shocked, maybe even a little scared. And all I could think of was how great I felt while pissing my assistant off.

"Shinobu. Masamune. Please stop it. You're scaring my customers."

It seemed like our little internal fight had become too much for Kaede and the rest of the café as well. Somehow, her words seemed to have an effect. Masamune calmed down, at least enough to stop yelling at me. He was still giving me evil glares while I continued to use that fake smile of mine.

"Alright you two. Take it outside!"

Kaede pointed towards the door and her voice sounded pretty steadfast. She was determined to get us out of her precious café. I could understand her. After all, this was pretty much a full-time job for her, unlike Masamune and I, who were only doing it part-time without payment. I lifted both of my hands and admitted defeat.

"Alright, we're taking off then. See you around."

I waved at her as I grabbed Masamune's armor-covered arm and pulled him towards the door. He must have been rather surprised at my sudden change of mood, but it had all been an act after all. His whole "throwing a tantrum"-thing always seemed to make me feel better. Sadly, it did not work very well the other way around, but hey. It is not like everyone can have what they want.

Δ

Back on the street, there was plenty of life on the harbor. It mostly consisted of players heading back and forth between the Central and Mercenary District, but there were a few people standing in the corners, talking. As Masamune and I came out of the café, his temper blazed up again.

"What was all that for?" he asked in a very loud voice. Still, I thought I could hear of hint of worry. "What's wrong with you today?"

I turned all around myself and sat down on the ground, a bit away from the café entrance. If even Masamune had realized that I had been in a bad mood, where was the point of my plan then? I unintentionally frowned and looked anywhere but at him. My eased mood was going right into what seemed like a bottomless pit. And of course Masamune had to be paying attention. He sat down beside me with a resignedly sigh.

"One of those days, huh?"

Right on the mark. I curled up, hugged my knees and hid my face from him. I did not want to admit it, but every now and then, when we were able to talk like civilized human beings, it was rather… nice. But as if I would ever let him know that. Either he would shrug it off as a joke or go into one of those deep moral speeches which I hated.

"Something personal?" he asked casually, as if nothing had ever happened.

"Not really. I just felt like being a nuisance today," I mumbled, my face still buried in my knees. I could not help but to smile a little. I was just able to see how his expression went from calm to annoyed. A tiny, but sincere smile came across my lips. All those easily changing expressions of his, always made me want to tease him even more. Perhaps I should just learn the term "limits".

Nah.

I stood up again, stretching my arms and feeling refreshed. Was it just me or did the town seem a lot more cheerful than earlier? Probably just my imagination, but at least it worked. Beside me, Masamune rose from the paved street as well. He still looked irritated, but that was how he always looked when we were working together.

"So... is there somewhere else we can go to discuss that stupid event thing?"

I put my hands behind my head and turned towards Masamune, whose reply was nothing more than a sigh.

"Yeah, let's go to one of the Lost Grounds. There's most likely not a lot of players around," he said calmly. "And stop calling the events "stupid". It's your job, right?"

I nodded.

"You got that right, old man."

I watched how my assistant almost fell backwards from that remark. One of the unwritten rules in "The World" was to not comment or ask about other people's ages, yet sometimes the temptation was far too great, especially when your partner constantly acted like a "responsible adult".

Before he was able to come up with a retort, I ran off towards the Central District, Masamune following right behind me. He might have been shouting or calling out to me, but I did not pay any attention. I was far too busy enjoying my spare time inside "The World".


	5. Login 2

Going between different areas was always a lot of fun. With your eyes open while travelling, you could be lucky and see the data flashing by. Usually the screen was just black, but it was still an enjoyable ride. I mean, in real life you could not teleport between different places. That would have been pretty neat though.

Soon enough, a beautiful large grassland area spread out before me. At the far end of it, a large wall rose. No one knew what was on the other side. Well, except for The World itself maybe. It was called the Morrigu Barrow Wall and it was one of the Lost Grounds within the game.

A Lost Ground. An area within The World with a unique story linked to it. There were no monsters or treasures to be found and therefore these areas were usually used as meeting places or secret hideouts. Every now and then an event could be held at one of the Lost Grounds, but it was not something you saw every day.

"The End of The World. That's what some people call it anyway."

I heard a voice beside me. It seemed that my assistant had arrived at the area as well. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"As if I didn't know that," I told him and added quietly: "Know-it-all."

Masamune just rolled his eyes at my final remark, but he did not comment on it. Instead he began to walk towards the edge of the cliff we were standing on. Silently, I followed him, well knowing that I would not be able to get him off my back before we had finished what we came here for: The event.

As we stood and gazed out over the amazing scenery of the Lost Ground, Masamune casually brought up the important topic of the day.

"Any ideas for our upcoming event? Hunting monsters for items seems a little dull for Tanabata."

I shrugged and let myself fall backwards onto the grassy field. Looking up into the sky, I began to put words on all of the crazy ideas I had been having for events for quite a while now. It was great to have the opportunity to actually arrange and host events, which the players loved... or hated for their weirdness.

"Well, how about a kind of story going on. We'll have players going between different areas to follow the story of Orihime and Hikoboshi. Of course, we should have the characters portrayed by the races of "The World"."

Slowly, a tale of two lovers destined to only be able to meet once a year came flowing past my lips. I had no idea how, but I had always been able to make up stories out of nowhere. That was one of the reasons why I had become an Event Admin. I wanted to tell those stories somehow. In real life, I never really had the possibility to convey all of them. No one was interested. Here in "The World", it was different.

When I noticed Masamune staring at me with a rather fascinated look upon his face, I thought it best to get back to how the players should be involved in the event.

"At the end of the quest, the players have to help Orihime cross the river so that she can meet her beloved. To do so, they must bring go to a bamboo forest and wish for a special scroll which allows them to summon the birds, who can help Orihime cross. I think the prize for completing the event should be a unique one-of-a-kind armor, woven by the Princess herself. How does that sound."

Masamune smiled at me and nodded admiringly.

"I like the idea. I think most of the players will like this kind of event for a change. I just don't understand where you get it from. How do you come up with a story like that?"

"No idea," I laughed and decided to tease him again, just for a bit. "But this is the reason why I'm the boss and you're the assistant. You see?" I stuck out my tongue at him. He did the same thing right back.

"Of course. You are a little genius when it comes to plan events. I bow down to your awesome creativity, oh "Shinobu the Mischievous". My ordinary way of thinking must seem completely unparalleled to yours."

We both ended up flat on the ground, laughing at his stupid servant act. It was hard to believe that we had been at each others' throats just an hour or so ago. We were usually so different, but in the end, we did have the same sense of humor. All was good between us again and my day had become great.

Until _that_ came along. Something which should not have been able to appear in an area classified as a Lost Ground.

A monster.

A loud roar cut straight through the air. I sat up, looking behind me. Masamune was already on his feet, ready to draw his sword if needed. I could feel my heart speed up. Monsters did not exist at the Lost Grounds. Just how was it even possible?

Another roar from right above brought my thoughts to a halt. Looking up, a large shadow covered the sun, allowing us only to see a silhouette of a large bird-like creature. I narrowed my eyes. I could swear I saw something shiny sprinkling off it. Something was definitely off. Then Masamune grabbed my wrist, frantically trying to pull me up.

"It's a Data Bug! We have to get the hell out of here. NOW!"

His expression looked like a mixture of shock and panic. He was not joking around. Something told me that he knew what we were dealing with here. Grabbing Masamune's wrist back, I was pulled back up and he threw Smoke Screen at the monster, allowing us to escape.

As we began to run towards the Warp Point, we were literally blown of our feet by a strong gust of wind. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the strange bird was heading straight for me. I panicked. There was no way that I could get out of the area fast enough. Then it hit me. If the bird was after me, Masamune might be able to contact the System Administration. That way maybe, just maybe, we would both get out of here alive. I noticed that Masamune was starting to get up again after having hit the ground pretty hard. Of course we had not come as a party and therefore we could not see each other's health points nor heal each other. I called out to him.

"Contact the Administration. I'll hold it off!"

I did not have time to wait for an answer from him. He just had to put some faith in me and believe that I could do it. Without thinking, I began crawling further away from the Warp Point, straight towards another cliff edge. Since the monster was obviously an abnormal occurrence, I had no chance of defeating it, but perhaps if I managed to somehow dash around it, I would be able to better assess my chances for holding it off.

Or so I thought.

Because the next second, the giant bird's beak was right in front of me, ready to pierce through the body of my PC. It felt like my entire existence inside the game flashed before my eyes. I was going to die. I was going to get killed by some kind of bugged monster.

Then, a loud tone rang through the air, bringing the entire world to a complete halt. I thought my heart had stopped beating as well. Seconds later, noise flashed across the screen, bringing me to my knees and the same tone rung out again and again. I wanted to prevent the tone from entering my ears, but somehow, the hands grasping the controller outside the game were unable to let go.

Amidst all of the noise, something started to appear in front of me. At first, it had an indeterminable shape, but gradually it became clearer. It was a book. My hands reached out to grasp it, completely out of my control. My breathing became shallow and I felt like I was about to pass out. Just then, my hands came in contact with a symbol that had begun to appear on the cover of the book: The number 8 in an overturned position.

The symbol of infinity.

My mind went blank, but it was as if my body outside in the real world had gone into some kind of seizure. My fingers were twitching. Sweat rolled off every single part of my body. My mouth was unable to mutter a single word. I could not even close my eyes. I could only watch as my PC moved out of my control.

Strange symbols started to appear on my PC's body, even on top of the clothes. The book was opened in front of me but it had turned around and was opened towards the bugged monster. My vision slowly changed. Everything was starting to look different. All around me was polygons and binary numbers. It was as if I could see straight into the very foundation of "The World".

My hand reached out towards the book and I felt an electric shock shoot through my hand in the real world. I gasped from the pain. A strange ball of light mixed with numbers and strange symbols began building in front of the book. Then, it was released straight at the monster. A single word crossed my mouth completely involuntarily.

"Delete."

The data of which the monster consisted was reduced to a pile of zeros. There was nothing left of it. Just as they had appeared, the strange symbols started to disappear again.

And so did my consciousness.


End file.
